Bolivarian Media Exchange

The Bolivarian Media Exchange, a subcommittee of the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (www.pcasc.net), was inspired by the democratic media movement that is an integral part of the revolutionary process in Venezuela. We began as the Venezuela media exchange, and quickly found that there was a desire to exchange and distribute independent media in solidarity with people's movements throughout the Americas. For us, 'bolivarian' symbolizes that reach of the democratic socialist people's movements that are leading Latin America and the world to an alternative future.

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PCASC-Global Exchange Labor Delegtion

Members of the Portland Central American Solidarity Committee (PCASC) in Conjunction with are on an historic labor Delegation to Venezuela and Colombia. We'll be posting their reflections here over the coming days.

We met our wonderful trip leader Leopoldo, a community activist who works with Radio Perola, a Caracas independent radio station that means "Radio Can,"a reference to the string can telephones that many of us know from childhood. In the context of Caracas, where five elite TV stations have long dominated the flow of information, Radio Perola is an example of how the grassroots, in picking up tin can and some string, can take back the media.

So this morning, our first visit was with Radio Negro Primero, another Caracas community station. PCASC folks, myself included, visited the station in January when 23 Portland folks came down to the World Social Forum. We were shown around the station and then, in a wonderful suprise (that will stop being such a suprise to delegates in a day or two!) we were invited on the air, in the middle of a program that was already in process, to discuss our thoughts on the recent US congressional elections. The Afro-Venezuelan community organizer who was invited to discuss urban land committees in his neighborhood seemed totally unpreturbed at a bunch of gringos invading his interview spot.

The two Afro-Venezuelans on the show (despite my comments somewhat to the contrary) seemed genuinely cheered about the Democratic victory in congress. For them, this week's elections at least signified that the American people didn't like Bush as much as they had and that, maybe, they realized that the war in Iraq was a big mistake. They also said that Democrats seemed more likely to engage in dialogue before taking military action. I said that while that might be the case, US social movements had to stay mobilized because it was Bill Clinton who invaded Kosovo and passed NAFTA. There was no disagreement here.

The conversation then turned to Katrina. The two Afro-Venezuelans present said that to them, Bush's greatest crime was the death sentence handed out en masse to the black residents of New Orleans solely by virtue of the color of their skin. Every time he said "because of their skin color", the Afro-Venezuelan host slapped his hand to indicate that he understood that the fact of blackness was real in both Venezuela and New Orleans.

Next, we met with Gregorio Salazar, an opposition member and Secretary-General of the journalists union. This is a story that I'll have to think about in greater detail later on, but I will say that the opportunity to meet with the opposition is really crucial for our delegation. In our discussion, it wasn't so much that he expressed outright contempt for the poor, because he didn't, but that his educated and privliged background had seemed to engrain in him an absolute disregard for the suffering and perspective of the poor majority. While the poor majority claims that the greatest benefit of the Bolivarian process is the expansion of democratic rights and the deepening access to and ability to produce information, the opposition journalists' union leader claimed that it was Chavez rolling back these very things. While briefly admitting that the former two-party system of Accion Democratica and COPEI had problems, he chose not to linger on the total exclusion that most Venezuelans suffered under the previous democracy. While admitting that the mass media had made serious errors, he neglected to mention that all most Venezuelans--many dark skinned and poor--see on TV are rich, white Venezuelans. That the corporate media here played a truly instrumental--nay, leading--role in the 2002 coup. Many, many things weren't mentioned.

He also depicted the National Workers' Union (UNT), started after the 2002 coup because of the CTV's role in Chavez's brief ouster, as a mere tool of the government. Oddly, he cited the fact the UNT's pro-independence majority is being toyed with by UNT currents more servile to Chavez as a demonstration that the UNT is government controlled. This is a complicated, dynamic and conflict-ridden process (the revolution is here dubbed "el processo"). Rather than a cause for despair, this open inter-movement debate and conflict is what makes Venezuela so special and so many people so hopeful that other models of social change (and socialism?) are possible.

About us

The Bolivarian Media Exchange is a group dedicated to fostering international relationships between independent media makers, distributing work from the south to the north, and bringing resources from the north to the south.

The media's job is to interest the public in the public interest. -John Dewey

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